The Caribbean island nation of Antigua and Barbuda was the first country to be hit this month by the monster storm Hurricane Irma. Prime Minister Gaston Browne and most of his compatriots rode out the storm on Antigua island – then heard the horror stories of those who lived through a worse strike on Barbuda island. “This was a very horrendous situation in which many individuals felt they were going to die,” Browne told me from the capital, St. John’s. “One family had to use ropes to literally